


Hand in Hand

by dogeared



Category: Thoughtcrimes
Genre: Challenge: Five Flans Ficathon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-03
Updated: 2008-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogeared/pseuds/dogeared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After three years, she knows that his hands don't lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand in Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [The Five Flans Ficathon](http://siriaeve.livejournal.com/283911.html)

Sometimes, it's easier for Freya to watch Brendan's hands than to look into his head. His mind can be confusing—for all that she can flip through people's brains like books, for all that she can turn to the end and see what's going to happen, skipping all the messy plot, the damaged characters; for all that she can snap the book shut when she's finished, Brendan's thoughts are a book unbound. All the pages are there, full-color, every word preserved, but they're scattered and disorganized if he's not focused.

And the thing is, most of the time, she doesn't even need to hear his thoughts to know what he's thinking. His face, animated as it is, runs the gamut from inscrutable to unreliable, but after three years, she knows that his hands don't lie. She knows every knobbly, battered knuckle; knows the two crooked fingers on his left hand from when he'd broken them, and the way they ache sometimes; knows that he chews on his thumbnail when he's frustrated; knows that his hands are steady when he holds his gun, but always tremble after he's fired it. She knows what his hands do when he's checking for a concussion, or buckling her into the passenger seat when she's had too much to drink, or changing a flat tire on the sedan when they get caught in the middle of nowhere while she's trying not to laugh and he's cursing up a storm the whole time. She's maybe even peeked into his head once or twice and found a memory of him jerking off in the shower, long, slow pulls, and she almost knows what he feels like in his own hand, knows better the familiar sum of _good_ plus _lonely_.

She loves him, she really does, and she knows he loves her, even if he'd never be able to articulate it that way, but she's pretty sure they're never going to have more than this—and that's okay. Because this is good, too—they do important work, and he has more fun now. He laughs, even when they're chasing terrorists and racing against time; his head's in the game, more than it ever was, and she knows she's done that for him—and for now, that's enough.


End file.
